Terrified Ukrainians, including families with young children and pets, filled the Kharkiv metro station after raiding early Thursday morning.
All trains stopped at a post-World War II subway station designed to be used as a bomb shelter, as asylum seekers were seen sheltering and sleeping in subway cars.
The scenes echoed intrusively from London during the Blitz in 1940 and 1941, when Germany led a series of bombings against the United Kingdom and many residents sought refuge in underground stations and shelters for air strikes.
Terrified Ukrainians, including families with young children and pets, filled Kharkiv’s subway station on Thursday. Above, a father carried his anxious-looking baby in a stroller down the steps into the station
Asylum seekers were spotted sheltering and sleeping in subway cars at the subway station, which turned into a bomb shelter overnight. People were spotted checking their phones carefully for updates, folding their arms and waiting tensely underground
All trains stopped at the metro station, which was built after World War II and was designed to be used as a bomb shelter. Above Kaman Denisenko looked pensive as he hugged his cat as he joined hundreds of others underground
A woman is seen in somber meditation as she awaits a train leaving Kyiv
The subway stations transformed into a bomb shelter overnight as Ukrainians sought refuge
Groups of people crowded inside train cars on Thursday, as seen above
Among those seeking shelter was a father seen carrying his anxious-looking baby in a stroller down the steps into the Kharkiv station. Another was a man named Caman Denysenko who appeared contemplative as he embraced his pet cat and joined hundreds of others underground.
One woman grabbed necessities from her home and fled to the subway, she told CNN‘s chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward from inside the station.
‘Just documents and some money, and mostly we can’t take cash because I’m not sure that I can pay by card now. And I’m not sure I can get anywhere from Kharkiv for now,’ she said, adding that she has a car, but is not sure it would ‘be safe in Ukraine in any city.’
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov told locals to fill the subway for safety. ‘Russian tanks are standing near the ring road. The subway is the safest place,’ he said at a press conference. ‘All utilities are working. There are no civilian casualties in Kharkiv. Terekhov asks everyone to stay in shelters.’
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko also said last month that his city would use its subway system as a bomb shelter in a Russian invasion.
A grisly photo detailing the violence on the ground shows an injured woman covered in dried blood with a large head bandage as she shows a tried grin. British journalist Darren Grimes tweeted the photo with the caption: ‘A woman wounded in an air strike on an apartment block outside Kharkiv. God help the people of Ukraine.’
Dan Rivers, an ITV News correspondent, tweeted a photo of a jam-packed hallway loaded with families huddled together and sleeping.
‘Kharkiv Subway tonight. Like something from the Blitz in London during WW2. Shocking. Where on earth will this all end?’ he captioned the tweet.
Salwan Georges, a photojournalist for the Washington Post, tweeted a video as he passed a crowded station as groups of people, some with very young children, settled in while explosions were heard in the distance.
“Hundreds of people, including many women and children, are currently sheltering at a metro station in Kharkiv, #Ukraine, while explosions are heard in the city,” he tweeted.
Meanwhile, in Kyiv, Ukrainians rushed from the station to flee the country. The Associated Press photographer tweeted a photo of a woman and a young girl waiting for a train, with the caption: “A woman and her daughter are waiting for a train while trying to leave Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, February 24, 2022.
“Large explosions have taken place in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odessa, while world leaders have condemned the start of a Russian invasion that could cause huge casualties,” he added.
Meanwhile, children from the Donetsk region were being taken to school while the war broke out in Ukraine.
In images also reminiscent of Blitz, elementary school students were taken to a file in an underground bomb shelter as they prepared for an attack by Vladimir Putin’s forces.
Too young to climb the shelter sills alone, many of the children from school number one in the town of Druzhkivka had to be raised by adults.
Cuddled next to each other on numbered benches, with fear and apprehension in their eyes, these are the children from the Donetsk region, led to exercises until the war broke out in Ukraine
In images reminiscent of Blitz, elementary school students were taken to a file in an underground bomb shelter as they prepared for an attack by Vladimir Putin’s forces.
There they huddled, arms folded around their knees, waiting for their fate. These are scenes that are likely to become more frequent after yesterday’s full-scale invasion.
Aerial exercises at the school are usually held twice a year, according to the BBC, which filmed the footage. But there was an additional emergency exercise on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian capital Kyiv is expected to fall into the hands of Russian forces within days and the country’s resistance is virtually crippled, US security officials fear.
Troops are already approaching the headquarters of the Ukrainian force, after today they took control of the strategic nuclear power plant in Chernobyl and will take it within 96 hours, removing the “new Iron Curtain” over Europe, warned Vladimir Zelensky.
Officials say Vladimir Putin plans to encircle Ukrainian forces in Kyiv and force them to either surrender or be destroyed, and then Ukraine’s leadership will fall in a week.
A former senior US intelligence officer told Newsweek: “Once the air and artillery ends and the ground war really begins, I think Kyiv will fall in just a few days.
“The military may take a little longer, but it won’t be long.”
A source close to the Ukrainian government said they had agreed to encircle Kyiv by 96 hours, but believed the government would remain strong and would not collapse.
President Biden addressed the nation on Thursday afternoon. He promised to impose tough sanctions on Russia, but said nothing about evacuation plans. Earlier this month, he said Americans in Ukraine must leave the country on their own
Republican Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty on Thursday asked the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State to tell them what the strategy is – if any – to get the Americans out of Ukraine.
Republicans, meanwhile, are demanding answers from President Biden on what he will do to help the roughly 23,000 Americans who remain in Ukraine.
Biden warned that if war broke out, the State Department would not save a single U.S. citizen or green card holder who is still in the country. The Americans are being told to make their way to the borders of neighboring countries Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Moldova and Hungary, but many cannot.
There are tens of thousands of people trying to escape Ukraine by bus, train and car. There are winding queues at every gas station, and banks limit how much cash people can withdraw.
Some unregistered ex-soldiers are helping people escape by bus, but there are still an unknown number of people on earth who need help.
Republican Senators Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn sent a letter Thursday to Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State Blinken asking for answers.
They referred to the outrageous US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which killed 13 US soldiers, and asked what the government had planned to avoid such disasters in Ukraine.
An explosion lights up the night sky over Kyiv in the early hours of Thursday, as Russia launched an all-out attack on Ukraine from north, south and east with bombs, cruise missiles and rockets raining from the skies
The attack has reached Ukraine on all fronts, with bombs and missiles hitting targets across the country, ground forces targeting Belarus, Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, and paratroopers throwing over Kharkiv
“We are writing to express our serious concern about the safety and evacuation of Americans in Ukraine.
Given the chaotic and chaotic evacuation of U.S. citizens legally resident and allies in Afghanistan amid the disastrous 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan – an evacuation mission that remains unfinished – Congress is willing and ready to take on oversight responsibilities on behalf of of the American people, “the letter reads.
Senators said the State Department estimates that about 23,000 Americans remain in Ukraine.
“What is the US government’s plan to protect American citizens and facilitate the evacuation of American citizens?” They asked.
Biden did not offer any form of promise or offer of help to Americans stranded in Ukraine when he spoke on Thursday.
He said the United States would impose harsh sanctions on Russia, hitting its oligarchs living abroad and its banks in an attempt to hit Putin where it hurts.
Biden acknowledged during the briefing that he did not think sanctions – which he and other Western countries have threatened for months – would have any effect on the Russian leader.
Earlier, DailyMail.com spoke with a group of 23 Americans as they were transported from Kyiv to Romania in two vehicles – a minibus and a car – organized by Brian Stern, a 23-year-old Army and Navy veteran who rescued 2,000 people. from Kabul last year with his volunteer group Project Dynamo.
Stern gathered the American evacuees shortly after 5 a.m. from Kyiv as “rockets fell from the sky” around them.
They are now driving 300 miles to Romania, taking quieter, smaller roads in hopes of avoiding Russian troops, fighter jets and thousands of others evacuated by car.
The State Department is unable to provide an exact number of how many Americans remain in Ukraine, but estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000. Now they are telling anyone still in Ukraine to travel by land to Poland, Romania. , Hungary, Slovakia or Moldova.
US evacuees are being rescued from Ukraine today by buses organized by Project Dynamo, a volunteer group formed by former Army Lieutenant Brian Stern. There were three children in the group smiling from the back seat of the bus as Russian fighters flew over them.
“There are thousands of Americans and NATO allies who remain in Ukraine at the moment and it is on the verge of Soviet-occupied Russia,” Stern, a former navy commander, told DailyMail.com on Thursday over a loudspeaker as he drove. one of two vehicles in his rescue operation.
“We are in the middle of what is probably the first American rescue in the early hours of World War III.
“We have 23 people in two vehicles. Everyone has a different story. What we have learned is that in these situations, people do not leave when they have to, for whatever reason. We don’t really judge and we often don’t ask.
“We have an American woman whose father died yesterday. She flew to Kyiv for his funeral and woke up to rocket fire and now we are evacuating her. She lives in New Mexico.
“Under this circumstance, some people did not believe. Some wanted to wait. Some hedged their bets and thought “Putin is not so crazy.” What we’ve all been doing for the last two weeks is saying, “Well, there’s no way he’s going to do that. Only a crazy person would do that. Then why should I leave and they will rob and rob my house. Unfortunately, all these hopes and dreams were wrong.
“The rockets landed at 5 in the morning. The sun rose and we rolled an hour later on a bus full of evacuees, “Stern told DailyMail.com by phone this morning as he drove a car full of evacuees.